by Claire Raye
“As in, we suspect he’s found out what you took from his office and he’s figured out you’ve gone to the police. Given the amount of evidence that was in there, my guess is he’s skipped town to avoid what he knows is coming.”
“Fuck,” I say, sitting back in my seat. “So what happens now? I mean…” I trail off, not even sure what I want to ask him. What the fuck do I know about arrests and police procedure and taking down criminals. Anything I do comes from watching fucking TV, which I’m sure is hardly legit.
Detective O’Connor pauses, not saying anything as the waitress returns with our food. I watch as he covers his plate in ketchup before picking up his knife and fork. “You should eat,” he says, pointing to my plate.
I stare down at the burger and fries, no longer hungry.
“Eat, Reid,” he repeats. “You need it.”
Exhaling, I reluctantly pick up my burger and take a bite. It feels like cotton, dry and matted in my mouth as I try to chew it, eventually swallowing the hard lump which now lodges itself in the pit of my stomach. Right next to that huge ball of fear.
He takes another bite of his own food before continuing. “As far as you and the Parkers’ go,” he starts. “Nothing changes. You’ll still stay in the safe house, but it might be for a bit longer now, that’s all.”
I exhale in relief, grateful at least that I’ll get to be with Sienna and Caleb during all of this. The three of us were always better together and right now, we need that connection we share more than ever.
“What about school?” I ask, taking another bite. “Can’t we just go back to California, take Caleb with us? It’s on the other side of the country, surely he…”
Detective O’Connor shakes his head. “No, we can’t have you be anywhere he knows to look for you.”
I sigh, somehow knowing that’s what he would say. “So, what are you going to do?” I ask.
He opens his mouth to speak but stops when the bell over the door rings out to signal it opening. I freeze in my seat, my eyes on him as he watches someone walk in, his eyes alert for a few seconds before he finally relaxes and turns back to me.
Unable to resist, I turn, see the older couple who just walked in and clearly aren’t my dad. I turn back to Detective O’Connor, who’s watching me now, a strange expression on his face. “What?” I ask.
He takes another forkful of his food, chewing slowly before swallowing. When he’s done, he pushes his plate away and looks right at me. “Do you think you’d be comfortable reaching out to your mother?” he asks.
“What?” I ask, surprised. “What’s she got to do with any of this?” I’d put money on my mom having no clue about any of my dad’s illegal activities. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say given they barely tolerate each other most days, my dad’s frequent absences and his deep pockets being the only thing my mom does know about.
“Nothing, we think,” he says. “But your father was supposedly picking her up at the airport when you left right?” I nod, wondering what he means by that. “So, she was the last person to see him, obviously she would’ve seen his reaction when they got home and discovered what was missing from the house,” he adds and I’m not sure if he’s referring to me or the documents in my dad’s study when he says that.
I put my half-eaten burger down, pushing my plate away as I reach for my water. I take a large gulp, swallowing it down as I try to put together exactly what he’s asking me. “So you want me to call her,” I start, crunching on a block of ice. “And see if she’ll tell me where he’s gone?”
He shrugs, but doesn’t look away. “Basically, yeah,” he admits. “Maybe see if you can get any information out of her about what his intentions were.”
I scoff. “Not sure that’s gonna happen,” I tell him. “These two barely speak to each other as it is.”
Detective O’Connor gives me a wry smile. “Might be unusual circumstances in this case.”
I let out a humorless chuckle, knowing this is more than just unusual fucking circumstances. As scary as it would’ve been, a part of me would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall when my dad came home earlier and not only found me gone, but all the stuff in his office missing, too. There’s no doubt he would’ve pieced it together immediately and I suspect pretty quickly lost his shit about it all.
“So you want me to use my phone for this?” I ask, pulling it from my pocket.
“Yeah, but not here,” he says, holding up a hand. “We’re gonna head over to Pawtucket police station and use an interview room over there. I don’t think he’s going to trace the call, but we don’t want to take any chances.”
“Okay and then after that, I can go to the safe house?”
Detective O’Connor nods as he signals for the check. “Yep, I hope so.”
Twenty minutes later and we’re driving into the Pawtucket police station, parking the car in one of the garages they have. I follow Detective O’Connor inside, watching as he flashes his badge to the cop at the reception who immediately lets us both through.
We walk down to a shared office space that’s similar to the one in Providence, only smaller, where we are introduced to some old guy called Darryl. Darryl walks us down to an interview room that contains a steel table and four chairs, a two-way window taking up one wall and no other furniture save for the clock hanging on another wall.
“Okay,” Detective O’Connor says, once Darryl leaves. “I’m going to record this, so I want you to put it on speaker phone. Don’t tell her where you are or admit to doing anything. Try and get as much information as you can about your father and his whereabouts, but don’t say anything about what happened to Caleb or his father, okay?”
“Yep, okay,” I say, nodding at his words. I’ll do whatever he wants me to do because all I want to do is make this phone call so I can get the fuck out of here and finally go see Sienna.
I put my phone on the table between us and as soon as Detective O’Connor has his set up and ready to record, I scroll through to my mom’s number, before setting it to speakerphone.
It rings twice before she picks up.
“Reid, where the hell are you?” she immediately asks. She sounds drunk, her words slightly slurred.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, shoving a rough hand through my hair.
“Of course it matters,” she shouts, her voice echoing around the concrete room we’re sitting in. “Your father is livid, absolutely livid. I can’t believe what you’ve done.”
I let out a hard laugh. “What I’ve done?” I shout back at her. “What about what he’s done?”
Detective O’Connor holds up a hand as though to steady me. I know he doesn’t want me to directly bring up anything to do with Mickey or Caleb Parker, but it’s fucking hard not to after seeing the pictures. After walking in and finding Caleb.
My mom lets out an ugly laugh. “Your father is an honest businessman,” she says and I’m not sure if she’s more drunk than I realized or just totally deluded by what her husband does. “All he’s doing is trying to earn money for this family and you’ve gone and ruined that. Ruined everything!”
“Right,” I say, exhaling. “Honest businessman,” I add sarcastically. “Look, is he there?” I ask, just wanting this conversation to end. “I need to speak to him.”
“No,” she snaps. “He’s not here, he’s out looking for you, so do us all a favor and come home, now.”
I shake my head even if she can’t see me. “I’m not coming home,” I tell her, leaving off the ever that I want to add to the end of that sentence. “But I do need to speak to him, so can you please tell him that.”
I hear the sound of her drinking. “Fine, I’ll pass on your message,” she says. “But you should know, he’s not going to forgive you for this.”
“I wasn’t expecting it,” I mutter as Detective O’Connor reaches over and ends the call.
Exhaling, I fall back in my chair, not sure if that achieved anything or not. I wonder if I’ll ever speak to or see my mom a
gain. It’s not like she even told me she was coming home or asked how I was. Once again, all she cared about was my father and his money, what my actions might do to stop her access to that.
I watch as Detective O’Connor picks up my phone, switching it off again before sliding it toward me. “Don’t use it,” he says, the warning in his tone loud and clear.
I pick it up as I slide it into my pocket, not acknowledging his request. “Now what?” I ask, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. All I want to do is crawl into bed, preferably with Sienna, and fall into a deep sleep and pretend none of this ever happened.
But I know that’s a long way off and not just because this shit with my dad isn’t going anyway anytime soon.
“Now,” he says, pushing his chair out. “I’m just gonna make a couple of calls and then we’ll head out to the safe house,” he says.
I stand, exhaling a sigh of relief as I follow him out of the room.
Finally.
Chapter Fourteen
Sienna
The house is quaint and nicely decorated, besides its small size, it’s the nicest house I can say I ever lived in, if you can call being sequestered living in it. It has two bedrooms, each with their own small adjoining bathroom. Nothing is over the top or fancy, but it’s been recently updated and it feels homier than I imagined it would.
It doesn’t mean it feels normal though. Without Reid everything still feels uncertain and the uneasy feeling that keeps itself in my thoughts whispers to me as Caleb opens the fully stocked refrigerator.
He grabs a beer and a bag of potato chips from the cabinet and flops down on the couch like he owns the place. His casualness is unnerving and no matter what I do, I can’t seem to find myself as settled as he is now.
I pace the room, looking in every closet, opening doors and moving things around. I feel a moment of panic rise up inside me, pushing painfully on my chest when I realize I no longer have my phone. It’s my connection to Reid and if he’s trying to reach me, he’s coming up short.
“How can you just sit there like that?” I demand at Caleb as he picks up the clicker and flips on the TV. “Aren’t you nervous?”
“Nervous? Look out the window, Sie. We’re surrounded by police, so I gotta say, this is the safest I’ve felt in two years.”
He lets out a hard exhale, his feet resting on the coffee table in front of him and I want to beg him to tell me his story, to unload all the awfulness he lived with for the last two years, but I can’t bring myself to do it.
I can’t handle what he’s been through and I’m not certain he’d share it anyway. There’s a level of shame that comes with being beaten up and scared, the intimidation factor so strong it may be impossible to overcome. Caleb and I may never speak about what happened to him, but I’ll always be here to support him, regardless of what that looks like.
So if that means he wants to drink beers and eat potato chips straight from the bag, I’ll do the same. I need to try to pull myself out of this haze that is consumed by Reid, and I guess drinking is one way to do it.
I sit down next to Caleb and he leans in, clanking his beer bottle against the neck of mine. “Here’s to our family business going under.”
“Caleb,” I chastise, “don’t say that.”
“What? We gotta joke about it or else it’s going to fucking kill me,” he responds and every word he says breaks my heart.
I was off living my life at Hawthorn thinking the biggest problem I had was avoiding Reid. I went to class and partied with Ruby in the evenings, and despite being broke as fuck, I was living a life that I wanted, a life that was only controlled by me. But Caleb was at home, living in fear, wondering if he’d ever get out from under Raymond Bowen’s thumb and after our father was killed, I’m certain everything became magnified.
He was the last Parker left, the only one readily available to take over the debt or if we’re being honest, the only one left to line Ray Bowen’s pockets with continuous income. He bled the bar dry. He bled us dry too.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask. He has to realize I hear him cry out at night, that I know he’s suffering.
“Do you want to talk about what’s going on with Reid?” he shoots back, his eyebrows going up with insinuation.
“Touché.”
Talking about Reid would not only mean I’d have to tell Caleb I’ve fallen in love with his best friend, but it would also mean I have to admit I’m so worried about where he is right now. The guilt I feel is unreal, eating at me and making me desperate for answers, and saying all of this out loud makes it far more tangible.
The conversation stalls out and Caleb continues to flip through the channels, stopping on a local news station. The weatherman is droning on, talking about the ceaseless rain and ever-present dark clouds of Rhode Island in the fall, but it cuts off suddenly.
The reporter flashes onto the screen and with her comes a picture of Reid’s dad. Caleb’s eyes widen and the gasp that falls from my mouth could be heard by the police who are stationed outside. It’s obvious that just a picture of him conjures up thoughts that neither Caleb nor I want to think about. I worry for Caleb’s safety and for Reid’s, and at this point, everything is far too up in the air to feel safe.
“Police have issued an All-Points Bulletin for Raymond Bowen, a local Providence loan shark. He’s missing and presumed dangerous. Police are urging anyone who has information regarding his whereabouts to—” The report is cut short when Caleb turns the TV off, killing the sound and anymore of the story. As much as I’m desperate to hear what she has to say, I know it’s for the best that we don’t listen.
“We don’t need to listen to that,” he says shaking his head, but I see the fear flash in his eyes. He doesn’t need to remain strong for me. I’m capable of doing that on my own. We both are. And we know that.
“I have some stuff to work on for school. You want to see what I’ve been doing?” I ask, changing the subject to something less stressful, less intrusive. If I don’t, I’ll allow my thoughts to be consumed with wondering where Reid is and once I’ve exhausted those thoughts, I’ll begin to stress about Caleb’s mental health.
“Sure,” he says, sounding far more relieved than I would’ve thought, and I grab my computer. Plugging in the scrambler thing the police gave me to keep it from tracing locations and IP addresses, I login and get started on watching a video recording of a lecture from my biology class.
Two hours pass and Caleb and I have been chatting about mitochondria and all kinds of other questions that were posed during my bio lecture. It feels normal and for a second I forget that we’re trapped in this safe house, hiding from someone who possibly wants to kill my brother.
It’s getting late and the sun has long since set. Caleb yawns, stretching his arms above his head and even though I know he’s exhausted, he won’t sleep. Even if he does, it will be dotted with nightmares and I prepare myself for the same sleepless night.
Until I physically see Reid, until I can touch him and hold him, I won’t be able to calm myself down. My thoughts will continue to swirl with every scenario that could possibly happen.
“I’m going to bed,” he announces to the room, and then asks me which room I prefer. I chose the one closest to the door in the hopes that the police bring Reid here and I hear him come in.
It’s a long shot that they would house us all in the same location, but this is Rhode Island and the police force isn’t all that large. I can’t imagine things like this happen very often.
“Okay,” I reply, stalling a little before I ask, “Do you think the police will bring Reid here?”
Caleb doesn’t answer; he walks straight to the front door of the cottage and whips it open. He calls out to one of the officers stationed outside yelling, “Hey, do you know where they’re taking Reid Bowen, Ray’s son? Will they bring him here?”
I’m now standing behind Caleb, pushed up on my toes as I look over his shoulder. The officer begins to walk toward us, an annoyed lo
ok on his face.
“It would be best if you stayed inside and only called us when you truly needed something,” he says, an air of aggravation in his tone.
“I kinda need to know or my sister is gonna lose her shit in here. I think it would be best for you to answer it or you can deal with her when she doesn’t get what she wants.”
“Caleb, what the fuck?” I whisper-shout in his ear, slapping him on the arm as he smirks over his shoulder at me.
The officer lets out an exasperated huff, looking right at both of us he responds with, “Bowen’s son was supposed to be brought here at the same time you both were. I have no idea where he is, but as far as I know the plan is still for him to be housed here, too.”
Caleb thanks the officer and closes the door, turning to look at me, he smiles and then disappears into the bedroom without another word.
I’m left standing there with a ridiculously big smile on my face that clearly gives away everything I’m thinking and feeling, but it’s short-lived as I replay the officer’s words in my head.
“Bowen’s son was supposed to be brought here at the same time you both were. I have no idea where he is…”
Where in the fuck is Reid and why isn’t he here yet?
I climb into bed with this thought seared into my brain, replaying over and over until I’m practically in tears.
I know I won’t fall asleep and I lie here in the darkened foreign room listening to the sounds of the night as my thoughts are invaded by my worst fears.
I doze in and out, my eyes heavy and as they close, I swear I hear the sound of a door opening. Panicked and with my heart racing, I jump from the bed, both Caleb and I running out of our rooms simultaneously but stopping when we see Reid coming through the front door.
He looks exhausted, his eyes red-rimmed and his hair disheveled. He’s unshaven and his clothes are wrinkled as if he’s been wearing them for way too long. But none of this matters and my mouth falls open when I see him.
The tears start before anyone can say a word and I want to run to him, throw my arms around his neck and kiss him with reckless abandon, but my feet won’t move.